KarMel Scholarship 2005
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“My F-Word” By
Colin Drucker |
Desciption of Submission: “My feelings on the word “faggot” what it
means, my feelings on reclaiming it and my own personal history with the word.”
- Colin
English Lesson of the
Day, folks.
If you do as I’ve done
for purposes of this essay and perhaps my own curiosity and visit the website
for Webster’s Dictionary—technology; ain’t it a kick?—and look up the word faggot, you will find three definitions.
The first one will say,
“a male homosexual,” but oh, thanks Webby, you preface
in italics that it is a term used “usually disparagingly.” For the most
part—y’know, four or five days out of the week, during the winter and summer months,
maybe through a few sports seasons—the word is used disparagingly. Otherwise…what? A grand compliment?
“Love the hat, you amazing faggot.” “How does a faggot like yourself
bake such an incredible apple pie?” “Your children are going to be the finest
faggots in day care.” Hm. I just don’t know about
that….
Another
funny little tidbit. The etymology—according to
Webster, unknown. Where did this silly idea come from? Why would someone
usually disparagingly call a male
homosexual—a gay man; let’s not be so formal—a faggot? I mean, have you even
looked at the other definitions? Read on, my friends. Read on.
The second
definition—which you must click on a link for, it is not readily available—is
some silly nonsense about “a bundle of sticks.” Huh? Sticks?
What’s this? Okay….
The third definition—a
verb! The bundling of these said sticks. That’s all.
One of these things
just doesn’t belong here…
Now
onto a History Lesson.
There is a rumor that
the word “faggot” was used in reference to a homosexual male way back in the
times when we were burning witches. Some deny it—including Webster,
apparently—and some totally believe it—not sure where I stand, really—but the
story goes that gay men were thrown into the fire to help burn the witches.
Apparently, they were more flammable or something. (Perhaps this is the origin
of the term “flaming,” too.) But much like…oh, say, sticks…maybe even a bundle of them, these poor gentlemen were used as
kindling. So the name stuck, and now, in the 21st century, we’re still
calling ‘em by this name. Makes sense?
Right?
Current Events Lesson
of the day.
If you go to my high
school in Metuchen, New Jersey, which I refuse to leave nameless—St. Joseph’s
High School, “Where Excellence is a Habit, Not a Goal”—you will hear any random
teenage boy, dressed in a uniform the whole day, a walking advertisement for
this all-boys Catholic school and everything it stands for, say something along
the lines of, “Whatever, he’s a fucking faggot.” Maybe someone will yell across
the cafeteria, “Yo, Bobby, you faggot! We’re over here!” (They’re friends. A
good friend would never resist calling you a homophobic slur.) A group of guys
will be walking into an English class, a History class, and the teacher—often,
a Brother of the Sacred Heart—will hear one of them say, “Yeah, way to be a
little faggot.” And this teacher may not say a word.
I believe
But what do I know?
I’m just some faggot.
Right?
I’ve said the word
“faggot” in the first few pages of this essay more than I’ve said it in the
last few years. It’s a bad word. It’s my F-Word. Hence the
title of the essay. (For kicks, I was going to call this essay “Pride
and Prejudice,” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.) I also thought of
perhaps calling this “My C-Word.”
We’re talking the
really bad C-word.
I won’t even say it,
but you don’t call a woman this unless you really either have no sense of the
violence of language, or you really hate her. And even then.
In some ways I wish my F-word was considered to be as awful as the C-word. I’m
jealous of girls. They have a term that much of the population will respect as
“off-limits.” How kind of society to back off and say, “No, that’s a little too extreme.”
Meanwhile, there’s a
whole school of thought among gay people that we should “Take Back Faggot!”
Much like we took back “queer,” apparently, but not related in any way to how
we stole “gay” from so many nice people, a word that once meant “happy,” and
turned it into something that now means “sex, drugs, and ABBA records.” I find
it very interesting what we’re allowed to take. I’ve heard no complaints that
“queer” doesn’t just mean “weird” anymore—now it’s “weird and gay”!—but I did hear some old woman on television decry the
robbery of “such a happy word like ‘gay.’” For shame, you
homosexuals.
I don’t really see the
appeal of reclaiming “faggot.” I suppose every subculture has to do it, in a
way. Look at the revolution of the N-word—which I can’t use because, well, I’m
white. But even if I were black, I wouldn’t call my friend something that
hateful. Don’t tell me it’s been
reclaimed. It hasn’t been reclaimed, it’s been dusted
off and turned inside out and worn foolishly. It’s still the same damn word, no
matter what you do to it.
Much like “faggot,” in
some very simplistic way of thinking, still means a bundle of sticks. And
“queer” is still weird, “gay” is still happy. That has not changed. Trust me,
I’ve checked Webster’s.
And I mean, isn’t this
universal of anything? Isn’t the essence still there, even if the shape, the
sound, the tangible proof is not? Or is that poor old woman on TV right? Can
the true identity of a word be stolen?
So then what exactly is a faggot?
I’m serious. I know we
went through Webster’s definition, the witch hunter’s definition,
Let’s be honest
here—are we referring to the stereotype when we say “faggot”? Do we mean an
effeminate man-whore who shops, drinks, and does X most days of the week, and
lounges around the house listening to Judy Garland and talking to his mother on
the phone the rest of the time? Is it him? This guy with the rubbery wrists who
lives in some apartment in the city and works as a hairdresser or someone’s
personal assistant? Him?
I’ll be honest: I don’t
want to be him. Yes, I would be insulted if someone implied that that was me.
Let me just clarify for a moment: I couldn’t be a man-whore if I tried, I don’t
do any sort of recreational drugs—I don’t even drink— and frankly, I’m too
cheap to shop that much. Judy Garland? Not so much. Talking to my mother on the
phone? Well, she did gave birth to me, among other
things, so I don’t mind giving her a call. My wrists work just fine, thank you,
and if I could afford an apartment in the city, I probably still wouldn’t take
it. And there’s a reason I’m at
So have I still been
called a faggot?
Yes. To
my face. On more than one occasion. But if I’m
not—if I don’t fit the description—then does it still mean anything?
In high school, I lost
any grasp of what the word meant, or how awful it really was. In my efforts to
fit in—or, more importantly, not stand out completely—did I say it in casual
conversation? I don’t really remember. I think there are certain things in our
lives that we choose to forget in order to feel better about our actions. We
can say, “Oh, I just didn’t know any better,” and thus justify anything we may
have done wrong. Maybe I’ve done that. Maybe I’ve blocked out any time I ever
used the word so that I could ultimately write an essay like this and play
crusader. But I could hear it and not really hear it. It would not bother me
the way it does now.
I had friends who said
it. And I had teachers who made gay jokes in front of the entire class. I also
had friends who refused to lower themselves to that level and risked how other
guys would react, and teachers who made a point in front of their entire class
that the school had a rather rampant atmosphere of homophobia.
A shining moment in
high school was in one of my American History classes, taught by a brother who
was infamous for, among other things, his gay jokes. He had some running gag
with people about “homosexual midgets.” I didn’t really get it, so I’m not
really going to bother trying to explain it.
Anyway, we were
learning about Leopold & Loeb in class, homicidal lovers in the early 20th
century. Eventually, Brother Mike had to mention, in front of this entire class
of teenage guys, that these two men were gay.
Well.
Someone started to
laugh. Of course! It’s a laugh riot. Leopold & Loeb brutally murdered some
poor kid, but hold on! Punchline: they were gay!
So I expected this to
just kind of fly by, but Brother Mike looked at this kid kind of cockeyed and
asked, “Do you think that’s funny?”
The kid stifled his
laughter. “What—no.”
“You have a problem or
something?” Brother Mike had a bizarre temper. I didn’t quite mind it this
time, though. “What if I was gay? Would you think that was funny?”
The kid gave the typical
straight-guy-trying-to-save-face line: “No. I don’t have a problem with gay
people.”
“Yeah,” Brother Mike said. “I think most
people who say that are full of shit.”
And that was that. One row over and two
seats back, I was admittedly shocked. From all people, I did not expect this
guy to make a statement like that. Certainly, I don’t think he was gay. I don’t
think that even matters. What really stood out to me was the point of what he
said: most people don’t really mean what they say. Which puts
a whole new spin on every one of his bizarre jokes about “homosexual midgets.”
Frankly, I don’t understand him enough to have an answer, except perhaps that
those are just jokes. One could argue, “Why would you joke like that?” but I
don’t know why. Some people don’t have answers. Some people just say, “Oh, I
didn’t know any better.” I know that’s no excuse, but often that’s all you can
expect.
To some extent, I don’t think this kid who
laughed really meant to laugh. I think he felt pressure from the rest of the
class, a sort of expectation—everyone knew he was the kind of kid who would
laugh at something so juvenile—to make a scene.
And it made me wonder. How many people in
my high school were using the word “faggot” without really meaning to be so
cruel? To be honest, how many people even knew what the real meaning was? We
weren’t learning about it in any of our history classes. Half the time I don’t
think teachers even mentioned that homosexuals existed anytime before the 20th
century. People didn’t know what they were saying; sometimes they didn’t even
know they were saying it. I can sit here and accuse them all of being heartless
and narrow-minded, but what do I know? I don’t even know what the word really
means.
I had not
seen or really even heard the word “faggot” in college until one of my first
nights as an RA this year in college. One of the big things in RA training is,
of course, being respectful and open to any possible “difference” a person
might have, and policing any sort of violation of that on the floor. I did not
except to have a problem with my F-word, though. I was going to a school that
was so PC it hurt.
I was
doing rounds one night, and on the dry-erase board on one of my residents’
doors was the word “faggot.” It caught me off-guard at first. At first I almost
didn’t recognize it, and then I recognized it all too well. I knew this word,
intimately. And having been away from it for so long, it hurt to see it again.
It felt like a punch in the kidneys. Part of me wanted to bust down the door
with a chainsaw and do my worst. Another part of me wanted to just walk away. I
felt like I wasn’t ready to confront this.
But I
knocked on the door anyway, thinking through what I might possibly say. One of
the residents in the room finally opened the door. This kid had a past. He
caused a lot of problems last year, I knew that much. I didn’t know the
specifics. So, I was going into this, our first confrontation, somewhat shaken
already.
“What’s
up?” he asked.
I nodded
towards the dry-erase board. “What’s that doing there?” An edge had crept into
my voice. All of my disgust towards every idiot in high school rose to the
surface. I suddenly had to keep my cool.
I couldn’t just tear this guy apart, and yet I could.
He looked
at the board and sighed, then leaned into the room, asking his friends, “Who
wrote this?” There was some conversation—everyone denied it, of course—before
he turned back to me. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely apologetic or just
trying to stay out of hot water.
“Just get rid
of it,” I said. “Other people might find that very offensive.”
He nodded.
“Yeah, totally.” He grabbed a towel and wiped it off.
“Sorry.”
“It’s
okay,” I said. “Have a goodnight.”
He closed
the door and I walked back up the hallway, my hands shaking. I didn’t yell. I
didn’t attack him. I accepted that that was all I could do. Maybe he wrote it;
maybe he knew who wrote it. Maybe he didn’t care. I don’t know. But I couldn’t
tell him what he should or should not think.
And, in
the end, that’s all you really can do.
Right?
I’ve asked
a lot of questions. Over time, I’ve had to decide what my answers are.
Unfortunately, I often insecurely follow my answer with, “I think.” But I’m
glad I don’t know. I’m not ready to know the truth. Where are you once you know
the truth? I’m not ready to settled on an answer yet,
for sure.
And all
things considered, I could still be wrong about everything—go right ahead,
convince me otherwise.
For now, I
can only make my own decisions. I will not reclaim my F-word. And I will not
try to redefine it for anyone, including myself. According to Webster’s
Dictionary, the word “faggot” is usually
disparagingly used to mean “a homosexual male.” If I had it my way, the
definition would read: “a word that is no longer used unless you’re a fucking
idiot.” But you can’t redefine a word. You can use it in a new way. You can
turn it inside out and on its side, but it’s still the same word, with the same
connotation and the same implications. Whether you really
mean it or not.
So what if we just stopped using it?
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